Suspended Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore will go on trial next month on judicial ethics charges after the Alabama Court of the Judiciary late Monday issued an order that denied Moore's request to dismiss the charges.

The court, in a brief one-page order, also denied a motion by the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission that sought an order removing Moore from the bench without a trial.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary (COJ) met Monday afternoon for a hearing to consider a motion by Moore to dismiss the judicial ethics charges against him regarding a same-sex marriage administrative order he issued to probate judges in January. The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission also argued for its motion for the court to remove Moore from the bench now for issuing that order, despite federal and U.S. Supreme Court opinions and orders that says gay marriage is legal nationwide.

Before and after the hearing Moore supporters many carrying signs including "Judge Moore was Right" and gay rights groups that held signs such as "#NoMoore" exchanged words outside the Helflin-Torbert Judicial Building where the hearing was held in Montgomery.

Michael Joiner, chief judge of the court of the judiciary, had said at the end of the hearing that depending on how the COJ ruled on the motions, a full-fledged trial may be held on the charges Sept. 28. The attorneys for both the JIC and Moore told Joiner they don't see a trial going beyond a day.

Mat Staver, one of Moore's attorneys, told Joiner he didn't see a need for a trial. He said the COJ already has all the information it needs to issue a ruling based on the arguments Monday and the information the court already has received.

Joiner asked John Carroll, one of the prosecutors for the JIC, how the COJ could rule on their summary judgement and punish Moore without having a trial. Carroll said that the COJ would have to determine that there is clear and convincing evidence.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled, but after a federal judge had declared the state's marriage laws unconstitutional, Moore first sent a letter to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley on Jan. 27 questioning the propriety of federal jurisdiction over the state's marriage laws, Carroll said. Moore also mentioned what the Bible says about marriage in that letter.

"The Chief Justice has abused his power to pursue his personal agenda," Carroll said.

Carroll said that he has known other state chief justices, including Howell Heflin, and all of them would have hated to have seen the decision the U.S. Supreme Court made in the Obergefell case declaring same-sex marriage legal in every state. "But not one of them would have done what the Chief Justice (Moore) did in this case," he said.

The charges center on Moore's Jan. 6 order that informed probate judges that an order issued in March 2015 by the Alabama Supreme Court telling them not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was still in place, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's and other federal courts' rulings in the months prior to that time stating that same-sex marriage is legal.

Staver told the court that nothing in Moore's January order, nor his other letters surrounding the gay marriage issue, urged probate judges to disobey the U.S. Supreme Court and federal court orders. He said that January order was only an attempt to update probate judges that the Alabama Supreme Court had never rescinded its March 2015 order.

"They are trying him on something that happened 13 years ago," Staver said, referring to Moore's first ouster from the bench in 2003 when he defied a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument form the state court building. Moore was re-elected as the chief justice in 2012.

Carroll, however, said that Moore was not merely advising probate judges. "We can't allow the chief justice to pretend his way out of these charges," he said.

After the hearing Staver told a crowd of Moore supporters on the steps of the judicial building that the charges are "politically motivated." He questioned why the JIC wants to remove Moore from the bench while the JIC on Monday had agreed to only a six month suspension for Tallapoosa Probate Judge Leon Archer for sexting with a litigant.

Moore told the crowd that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which originally filed complaints about Moore's orders and public comments regarding gay marriage, "doesn't want anybody opposing the agenda of the homosexual movement."

Moore noted that Carroll - more than 30 years ago - had been legal director of the SPLC.

Moore denied telling probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal orders. "There is nothing in that administrative order that says that."

Richard Cohen, president of the SPLC, however, sees it differently. "It's clear that Justice Moore has abused his power to push his personal agenda. He has absolutely suggested and told 68 probate judges to violate a federal court order. Now he is trying to save his skin by playing word games," he said.

"It is unseemly and it is dishonest. Alabama is a great state and deserves better than a chief justice who thinks he is the law unto himself," Cohen said. "We've said it many times, he acts as if he is the Ayatollah of Alabama. Instead he is an elected state judge required to follow the oath of his office, which makes federal law supreme, whether he likes it or not."